And yet . . . too many things are clear to me when Flavio is out of sight. He is handsome and interesting and smart and strong. He is also logical and practical and . . . cold. Am I judging him too harshly? Am I being silly? There is just something that is not right. How can my feelings be so confused, so up and down at the same time? My body and my head say two different things. I can’t tell what my heart is saying.
In the first week of August, there are bombings in Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore because the governor of Massachusetts has denied clemency to Sacco and Vanzetti. On the 15th, the lead juror’s house is bombed, though he and his family are uninjured. In the final days before the scheduled execution, Michael Musmanno appeals to the US Supreme Court. Papa continues to believe that justice will kick in at this level of government—surely the Supreme Court will intervene and remind the country of what we stand for—but he is wrong.
The newspaper says that Luigia Vanzetti, Bartolomeo’s sister, has come from Italy to be with him at the end. The paper describes her as “a quiet little woman in a faded brown traveling cloak, one hand clutching a gold medallion of the Madonna.” Their father didn’t come, she says, because he believes that there is no chance for his son, but he told Luigia that his hope is that they will return home together. I am surprised to read that Luigia has come to persuade her brother to see a priest and return to the Catholic faith. She also fears there is little chance that the authorities will intervene and stop the execution.
I put the paper down because my eyes are clouding with tears. I imagine that I am in her shoes—that it is Giova who has been sentenced to death. How could I survive such a thing? How can Luigia survive such a thing? And how much worse for Rosina Sacco, who has two small children, to know that she will be raising them alone. She has told reporters that she and Luigia “are sisters in misfortune.” I would call them sisters in true agony and sorrow.
Mama doesn’t read, but I read these articles aloud to her. I don’t know what her feelings are about anarchy and government and courts. Mama’s response is always to light candles and to pray. She is particularly moved by the plights of both of these women and takes up her rosary.
I’m too agitated to pray, especially the rosary which requires meditation. I walk outside and sit on the porch. August is a hot month. There is no breeze. Marcello and Lindo are lucky. They are too young to pay attention to the paper and too young to understand anarchy and writs of habeas corpus and denials of appeal. I don’t fully understand it all, either, but I understand enough to have a heavy weight on my chest.
When I read the morning paper a week later, on August 23rd, Sacco and Vanzetti are dead, executed the night before at midnight. Pa and Giova are at work when I read Vanzetti’s words to Mama:
“‘I wish to tell you that I am innocent, and that I never committed any crime but sometimes some sin. I thank you for everything you have done for me.’ He went on calmly and slowly, ‘I am innocent of all crime, not only of this, but all. I am an innocent man.’”
The last part of the article I have to read in a cracking voice. “As the guard on his right knelt to adjust the contact pad to his bare leg, Vanzetti spoke again, his eyes covered. ‘I now wish to forgive some people for what they are doing to me,’ he said quietly.”
I put the newspaper into my lap and sob. Mama is crying, too, and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my shoulders. We don’t talk, though. There is nothing to be said.
By the time Papa and Giova get home from work, we have cried so much that our faces are red and swollen. Papa already heard the news at work, but he sits down with the paper to read the article. On his way home, he says, everyone in town was talking. All of Sharpsburg is in mourning today.
There is another article in the paper about a riot. Near Cheswick, which is just twenty miles up the river from us, there was a Sacco-Vanzetti protest meeting yesterday. When a twenty-eight-year-old policeman assisted in breaking it up, he was shot and killed. Another man was injured and taken to the hospital. Pa reads the first few paragraphs and shakes his head.
“It serves him right,” says Giova sullenly. “What right did the police have to break that up? They had a right to meet. It’s freedom of speech.”
“What are you talking about?” says Papa. “That was an innocent young man. He may have had a family. What does killing him accomplish?”
“Is judicial homicide any better? That’s what the death certificate reads, Pa—‘judicial homicide.’ Those were innocent men as well. The only difference is that their murder was legal.”
“Giova,” says Papa compassionately, “I am just as puzzled as you are. I don’t understand how this happened, and I am sick about it. But that doesn’t mean that violence is the answer.”
“Maybe not, Papa. But doing nothing and accepting injustice is not the answer, either. I need to tell you something before Giuseppe gets home.”
“What is it?”
“We are leaving for New York. And we won’t be back. I lost my job, Pa. They fired me yesterday, and I know it’s because of my politics.”
“That can’t be. You said yourself that the men were afraid of cutbacks. Business is down. We can find you a new job.”
“No, Papa. Business is not down. I bought two train tickets today, and Giuseppe and I are going to New York. There is going to be a meeting in Union Square. Carlo Tresca is going to speak. Rosina Sacco will be there. And I’m going to be there.”
“Giova!” cries Mama, coming into the room. “These are dangerous times. Look at the paper—that riot in Cheswick. You could be killed.”
“Mama, I’m going. Any of us can be killed without ever leaving our own towns. Vanzetti said he was never even in Plymouth where that robbery took place, but no one believed him. I won’t stay here anymore and do nothing. Not anymore.”
There is conviction in Giova’s voice and fire in his eyes.
“And what about Annette? You don’t want to leave her, right?” I find it ironic that Mama is hanging on to the thread of Annette’s name when she usually goes to great pains to avoid mention of her—as though somehow Giova would forget about her if we didn’t remind him of her existence.
Giova starts to talk and closes his eyes when the words don’t come. He tries again with difficulty. “Annette is going to have a baby.”
“Giova!” cries Mama in disbelief. I don’t know what to say. We’re both speechless.
“Not my baby,” croaks Giova with a look of pain in his eyes. “She’s having Tom McGuire’s baby.”
Tom is the owner of McGuire’s Bar, the one I nearly ran to for refuge from Luca. He’s older than Giova by ten years, I’ll guess. No one will deny that he’s charming and funny and talkative—much more so than Giova—but he’s also got a reputation for being shallow and crude and dishonorable. Annette isn’t the first girl whose life has been forever changed by him.
My poor brother. Giova was there to hold me in my imaginary romance with Valentino. Now he is suffering true heartbreak, and I didn’t even know.
Mama has her arms around him and is crying.
“You’ll be home for Christmas at least?” asks Mama.
“Why Mama? Why should I be a hypocrite? There is no God.”
Mama covers her mouth and gasps, and then she turns back into the kitchen, her eyes filled with tears.
“Please don’t go,” says Papa. “I know that you’re angry, but this will pass. A better job will come up. Things will work out. Give it a week, okay? How about a week? Let me talk to your boss.” I’ve never seen him talk to Giova this way. Papa never has to ask—he can command. But now he seems to be the child. Giova has all of the cards.
“No, Pa. We leave tomorrow. You have to let me follow my heart. This is no world for a man without convictions.”
Pa nods his head, then grabs Giova and holds him tight. There are tears streaming from his eyes, and I leave the room to give them privacy. I thought this day could not get worse, and now it has.
Dear Diar
y, August 23, 1927
I thought the world had ended exactly one year ago today when Valentino died. But now I know that when someone dies of illness, of a death that is left to nature, that is not the greatest sorrow. I can’t explain the heaviness of my heart today. It is more than just the execution of Mr. Sacco and Mr. Vanzetti, who I believe were innocent men. It is the realization that men are merely men. They have no special wisdom. Those in power have no particular kindness. I have been waiting to feel like an adult, and now I know. I am as adult as I may ever be. Mama, Pa, the judge, the jury—they are no closer to understanding truths than I am.
There are bad men in the world, and certainly bad men who are Italian. Luca was proof of that. What Luca did was the catalyst for his own death. But Sacco and Vanzetti did nothing wrong. They at least deserved a second trial. If the court is wrong, it is now wrong forever, and the Sacco children have lost their father for good. The family and friends of Mr. Vanzetti have lost a virtuous and brave man for good. If the court is right, another trial would have justified the sentence and satisfied the millions of people around the world whose hearts were stirred by this case.
Life is fleeting. The turn of a knife. The flick of a switch. It’s over. Justice is fleeting. The crack of a gavel, and justice disappears. The shake of a head, the scratch of a pen, and an appeal is denied. I woke up today to see the world as it is. No one is guaranteed justice or a good life or a living wage or even happiness here. Giova understands, and he looks for answers among the anarchists. The bombs of the anarchist are no better. I won’t trust man to do the right thing ever again.
* * *
On the morning of the 26th, Giova and Giuseppe pack up their bags and say their goodbyes to us all. Everyone is crying—Lindo, Marcello, Papa, Mama, and me. Giova hugs me tightly and tells me that he will write. Giuseppe kisses everyone, even the boys, and Papa makes him promise to write to his own mama. Then Mama, in her hysteria, gives them a bag of food and implores them not to go while Papa squeezes money into Giova’s hand for both he and Giuseppe. Giova doesn’t want to take it, but Papa makes him. And he begs him to write as soon as they have found work.
It is with sadness that we gather at the dinner table that night. Mama still cooks as if there were seven instead of five of us, and often when she looks at their empty chairs, she bursts into tears. I would like to do the same, but Papa has his hands full with Mama, and I don’t want to make it worse.
Two days later, on Sunday, Papa turns on the radio so we can hear the coverage of the Sacco and Vanzetti funeral on the radio. In a steady rain, 7,000 people follow the bodies of the men eight miles across the city of Boston to a crematory while nearly 200,000 watch the march. The radio commentator explains that the marchers are wearing scarlet arm bands that read, “Remember justice crucified, August 22, 1927.” Many of them are wearing single red roses in their coat lapels, the red symbol of the Internationale. There were huge floral arrangements at the Langone funeral parlor where the two men lay in state. On one, says the commentator, a banner read “Aspettando l’ora di vendetta”—Awaiting the hour of vengeance. Another read, “Revenge,” and several others “Massachusetts the Murderer.”
During the march, the commentator reviews the last days of Sacco and Vanzetti, and he mentions Michael Musmanno, the lawyer Pa had such high hopes about. No one tried harder to save them in that last hour, says the commentator. Musmanno had gone from judge to judge seeking a stay of execution—including Supreme Court Justice Oliver W. Holmes. When that failed, he tried in vain to talk to President Coolidge himself, but his secretary would not put the call through. At least Pa knows now that Musmanno had not given up—that he worked frantically for their lives up to the final minute, as Pa had told Giova he would.
We can hear, over the radio, the sounds of the crowd clashing with the police. These marchers, says the commentator, seem more angry than sorrowful, and they seem more like paraders than mourners. There is a tenseness, a bitterness, he says, that is expressed in their mutterings.
At the crematory, Mary Donovan, secretary of the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee, begins her eulogy. It, too, turns to bitterness. “Massachusetts and America murdered them!” she cries.
Pa turns off the radio, and Mama dabs at her eyes with her handkerchief. I cannot talk to Papa about this case. It is too sad for both of us, and I frankly don’t trust his answers anymore. Papa may be as disillusioned as I am.
“I’m going out for a walk,” I say to both of them. Before they can answer, I grab my sweater and am halfway down the street. I would like to walk until it doesn’t hurt anymore, this pain inside.
My first thought is to walk to the tracks. The boys will be there, and maybe I can melt pennies with them. Maybe I can walk the rails for a while or collect coal from the fallen cars. Maybe, if Marcello and Lindo let me watch for trains with them, I can go back to being a kid for today.
That’s the direction I head. The neighborhood is quiet. I wonder if most people are listening to the radio. I wonder what the men at the barbershop are saying today. I wonder if they are saying that they knew all along that an Italian anarchist could not get a fair trial in this country.
When I turn the corner, I’m nearly at the school. Sr. Norbert is sitting on a bench, reading a book. I haven’t talked to her since school ended in June, though we say hello to each other at mass. I really don’t have any intention of disturbing her reading. In fact, I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now, so I put my head down and walk quietly by. Since I’m on the other side of the street, there’s a good chance she won’t see or hear me.
Just as I am almost out of earshot, she calls me back. “Carolina! Carolina!” I look back, and she is walking toward me, so I can’t do anything but retrace my steps. I can’t pretend that I haven’t heard her.
“Hello, Sister.”
“I was just thinking of you today! Are you having a good summer? Another week and school starts up. I wanted to talk to you about that. I don’t imagine you’ll want to have lessons anymore now that you’re seventeen, and Lindo tells me you might even be getting married soon. But if you would like to learn a little Latin . . .”
I’ve been looking down while Sister Norbert was talking to me, and now I have to answer her. I raise my face to hers, and she looks startled. “Carolina, what’s wrong? You’ve been crying.”
I don’t know where to start, and the pity in her face makes me cry harder. She hugs me to her, and I don’t know what comes over me. I cry even harder into her black habit. I’m crying so hard I surprise even myself. How can I tell her why I am crying when it’s everything at once?
“Come on. Let’s sit on the bench in the garden where we can have some privacy to talk,” she says and produces a handkerchief from her pocket for me.
At first, we don’t say anything. I wish that Sister Norbert didn’t see me cry, but my humiliation is now something I will have to accept. Sister lets me finish my crying jag and collect myself, and unfortunately that takes me a few minutes.
For that few minutes, we sit at the grotto without speaking. Sister was right. This garden looks so different in the summer. The roses are in full bloom, and everything is green. As I glance around, I catch the concerned face of the Blessed Virgin looking down on me.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” she finally asks.
“I was listening to the funeral procession of Sacco and Vanzetti on the radio. I didn’t think that they would really get the electric chair, Sister. I’m having a hard time understanding the cruelty of people. How could a judge let that happen? Now my brother Giova and my cousin have moved away, and I don’t know when I’ll see them again. Giova says that God is dead. I don’t believe that, but I don’t understand why God didn’t intervene. Why didn’t he save them? I prayed so hard. Mama prayed her rosary over and over. I guess I am just angry and sad that there was nothing I could do—nothing at all that would make a difference. I feel helpless and frustrated. And I don’t know what kind of world we are living
in.”
“No wonder you’re crying, Carolina. You have the weight of the world on your shoulders today. Do you remember when Jesus took the weight of the world’s sins upon himself? He was in agony because of it. Remember the scene in the garden of Gethsemane? He was sweating blood over the sins of mankind. They weigh heavy on the hearts of all good people who have compassion. We feel each other’s pain. I believe that God intervened through the millions who protested in this country and in Europe. I believe that God was present in the good men who worked so hard to defend them. The problem is that the judge and the governor and the jury are men of free will, as we all are. Their hearts were hard. Like Pilate, like Caiaphas, they had a chance to do the right thing and will answer to God for their lack of mercy. ‘For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.’ Do you know what that scripture means? It means that someday God will show them as much mercy as they showed those two poor men.”
Sister stops for a moment, and I find that my tears have stopped as well. Unlike the answers of Giova and of Papa, her words are comforting to me, and I am hanging on every one of them. Sister must realize this, so she continues.
“We are never guaranteed that our prayers will keep us from suffering. We can pray for it to pass, we can pray for strength and endurance. But God did not spare the cup from his own son. Mary, in all of her goodness, was not spared, either.
Remember, Carolina, that God is still in control. We will never be rid of pain and injustice until the kingdom of God is fully realized. Our consolation is that, in the exact moment of death, Mr. Sacco and Mr. Vanzetti were with our Lord in paradise and were finally free of the torments that this world put them through. And one day, when the kingdom is fully here, the world will be a place of peace and justice.”
Now the tears are streaming again, but when Sister asks me if I am feeling better, I nod my head, blow my nose, and thank her for talking to me.
Sister Norbert pats my arm. “‘Blessed are the poor in spirit and those who mourn.’ I told you before that you’ve got compassion for others, and that is a very good thing. Now tell me about this boy that Lindo says is courting you. Is he a nice boy?”
The Creeds that Move Men's Hearts Page 19